Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Tuong Ot Xa (Vietnamese Lemongrass Chili Sauce)

Each fall when the chili peppers ripened, my ba noi (paternal grandmother) would grind what seemed like endless amounts of fresh chilies in the food processor. There'd be jars and jars of chili sauce, which she doled out to everyone in the family. A spoonful here or there would liven up any dipping sauce. A few months ago when I came across Andrea of Viet World Kitchen's mention of adding lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and fish sauce, I knew it would kick up the chili sauce another notch.

So for my first experiment, I gathered a couple stalks of lemongrass, a handful of fresh chilies from my youngest uncle's garden, a handful of dried chili pods, some chili sauce I already had in my fridge, and Sriracha hot sauce for color. The result was so tasty that I figured I'd make some to share.

So I went back to my youngest uncle's garden and picked a couple more lemongrass stalks and a little of each variety of chilies. I still added in dried chili pods, Sriracha hot sauce, and half a dozen garlic cloves.

And ended up with a small pot of lemongrass chili sauce to pass along to my aunts and uncles. This sauce was a big hit with my youngest aunt's family and the older '88 even asked to take some with her back to college.

Then it got a little insane. At one point, I counted eight kinds of chili peppers in my sauce. And while I was making this in the kitchen, a friend in the front of the house was coughing from the chili fumes. I guess I've become a little immune but this stuff can be as potent as you want it to be. My youngest uncle then gave me a whole colander full of chili peppers and told me to make some more sauce, especially to give some to my parents. My dad eats fresh chili with everything. He takes a bite of raw chili in between other bites when he's eating.

So yes folks, I made a 14-inch wok-sized amount of chili sauce.

Mmm. Look at all that lovely chili and lemongrass.

Which, in keeping with my grandma's tradition, I jarred and passed along to family members and friends. Henry's mom was a big fan and not-so subtly requested a second jar after the first one ran out. Oh, this wasn't the last batch. I made another batch of two 24-oz and 68-oz jars of sauce, which my parents shared with my aunts in Oregon, but I guess I forgot to photograph that batch. My second-youngest aunt's husband couldn't stop raving about it, which resulted in my cousin T asking for some of her parents' supply of my sauce.

My recipe is only an approximation. Truthfully, I didn't measure anything at all but tasted as I went along, sometimes gulping a glass of water in between a particularly spicy spoonful. We all have different spicy tolerance levels so adjust according to your taste.

I pureed the ingredients and cooked the chili sauce in the pan as I went along as lemongrass takes a little longer to soften. If you don't want to do that, you can mince everything separately and set aside the ingredients before cooking. Below are the steps that I went about in making the sauce.

Heat stove to medium and pour about 1/4 cup oil.

Puree lemongrass in food processor until finely minced and add to hot oil. Give it a quick stir.

Then puree about half a dozen cloves of garlic and 4 shallots or 1 small onion. Add that to the pan, turn heat down to medium-low so they don't burn, and give it another quick stir.

Then puree the fresh and dried chili peppers in several small batches, stirring in between. When the lemongrass, garlic, shallots, and chilies have all been added, they'll start releasing their own oils. If the sauce seems too dry, add more oil so that the chili is just lightly covered. This keeps the chili sauce from drying out and helps to preserve its color.

Let simmer on low for about 10 minutes so the flavors can meld. There should be just a subtle sweetness from the sugar, a bit of savoriness from the fish sauce, a slightly fragrant aroma from the lemongrass, and as spicy as you want it.

Store in jars in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Who made my recipe for tuong ot xa?
Darlene of Blazing Hot Wok said, "Holy shit is it good! Even while it was cooking, I could tell it was going to kick ass because the aroma was divine. "
Vicki of A Work in Progress said, "Either WC has an extremely high tolerance for pain, or I used some damn-hot chilis! However, it's soooo tasty. I can't wait to put it on absolutely everything." Miss.Adventure @Home said, "The aroma was so delicious that I kept trying it even though it was very spicy...I mixed the hoisin sauce with my new chili sauce. It added so many more dimensions to the dipping sauce! I think I especially liked the flavour the lemongrass added." Shelly in Real Life said, "I’ve been using this sauce for about a month on almost EVERYTHING – it’s my new sriracha!!"

wow, you must have a crapload of chilis in your garden. that's a lot of sauce!

btw, i ate at boiling crab in alhambra for the first time yesterday. it was sooooo frigin good! We didn't have any crawfish like you did, but we had shrimp and crab legs. there was so much meat in those crab legs!

As soon as I catch my breath, I'll post a comment.................there, I think I'm able now! Your photos are gorgeous and I canNOT wait to try some of your recipes - I came over from nikkipolani's site where I am absolutely in love with her pork. I'm so glad to have found you now!

WC, that was very nice of you to send us some of your sauce. I took a whiff of it and it smells amazing. I will probably make some mi noodles/hu tieu this week and add the sauce! I was thinking this might also be really good for hot pot... either as a dipping sauce or broth enhancer. mmm vietnamese style hot pot?? thanks again.

I've been a "lurker" on your blog, but I just wanted to stop by and say a) thanks for such a great blog, i love Vietnamese food and all your posts have been great resource for me; b) i love hot sauce and have always wanted to make my own, i didn't decide to do it until i saw this particular recipe, i tried it today and it turned out great!! i never thought making a chili sauce is this easy.

Nice work. I made a batch based on Andrea's post today. I have a long history of liking these types of sauces but not knowing all what is in them. Now that I have a batch made, I'm kind of ashamed I didn't make some sooner instead of subsisting on the dodgy imported stuff from Vietnam with the unsealed lids.

I salute your huge wok full of sauce and your sharing ways.

P.S. I have a great tomato chutney recipe that is a good shareable project sauce.

I have to say, I LOVE YOUR SITE AND BLOGS, we made like 10 of your recipes so far and its all thanks to you, I see you guys mentioned boiling crab and was wondering if you or anybody might have an idea on how to copy cat their recipe? Any help would be so appreciated , as you would know, going there can get expensive, I also love their G sauce for the oysters which are great. You can email me directly at tayjay08 at dslextreme.com. Just a heads up, I would also pay a finders fee if the recipe is just as good as them THANKS SO much and keep those recipes going.. our favorite so far is the coke pork and PHO!

Somebody mentioned boiling crab, this sauce really loooks like it. Is the taste similar at all or is this something different. Have you tasted the place? Its to die for. Are any of your recipes similar to the sauce? Would like to try it. Thanks!

Tony,My lemongrass chili sauce is nothing like Boiling Crab's sauce. Umm, yes, I blogged two locations of Boiling Crab. And I do have a Cajun shrimp boil sauce that's not quite the same as Boiling Crab's, but is pretty tasty. I suggest you actually use the search bar or the recipe indexes, both of which would've have provided you the answers.

I think this sounds great! What do you think about omitting the oil? I imagine I would have to process it in a hot water bath to preserve it, but my real question is whether it will affect the flavor considerably?

Melissa,I haven't tried it without oil. My grandma used to just puree chilies with salt to preserve it. But that version didn't have all the flavoring of this one. I've tried making it with less oil, but the oil is really needed for preservation or else the chili changes color.

hey I dont wanna go thru the hassle of making it, where can I buy this? I always have them at Viet restaurants and absolutely love it . But when i ask where i can buy it, everybody gets quiet like I am asking a question thats illegal. Please tell me a source to buy this stuff. Thanks in advance.

Ratin,If you like the version sold at the restaurant, just ask them to sell it to you. I haven't seen it in the grocery store myself, just other types of chile sauces. I sold a few jars in my Etsy shop, but not enough to make it worth the hassle. So your best bet is just to ask the restaurant to sell it to you.

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